Fulmens

OK, I _know_ that stuff like that gets boring fast. I, with some help from my unindicted co-conspirators, at one point controlled the Luck Charm market, trying to drive out profiteers that we, the Luck Charm conspiracy, had inadvertently created.

I flipped 500 LC's a day for a couple weeks. It sucked. Even if I"d been making money instead of burning it, it would have sucked.

I can no longer edit the OP, apparently, because I let it go too long. When I get another miniguide or two done, I will throw myself on the mercy of the mods.

(qr)
[ QUOTE ]
wait until the price settles again and list a stack of 10 for 100K or something to protect the market from Ebilness.


[/ QUOTE ]

About this: I had a "shock absorber" in place heroside for about 15 months, I think. Each type of midrange salvage, either 10 bids at 1100 or 10 for sale at 19K. Log on once or twice a day- if I bought low, I would list high, and if I sold high I'd bid low.

Sometimes it actually worked- I'd log on and see that I sold six Improved Cybernetics at 19K (and then someone came along and replenished the supply.) USually a price spike would go right through my little shock absorber and stop at 50K, or 100K, or whatever- I don't know where it stopped, I only got to see the price as it was going by.

Any antigouging types want to do this? It's easy. It just requires a little tending. Salvage prices are up a little- might want to put the "Too high" at 50K or something. Some weeks nothing goes out of bounds at all. It just takes 12 market slots and the desire to actually do something about a perceived problem, other than complain.

My guess is "Stuff like that gets boring fast. "

Well done, well documented!

Siolfir: That's why I pay people fixed sums of money per IO to roll anywhere between level 32 and 40. There's too much supply at 50 and not enough below that. Current price: 6 million inf per roll. Anyone wanna sell me some?

If you're busy figuring out the rest of the game ("what's an anchor? Why do people yell at me when I say 'healer'? Where are the Abandoned Sewers? Why did that guy hit me for 3/4 of my HP in one shot, and what can I do about it? ") you can just buy Training/Dual/Single origin IO's and upgrade them every 4 or 5 levels, and sell all your ingredients and recipes for cheap at Wentworth's. (You'll have plenty of extra money for SO's.)

If not, probably a good rule of thumb is "generic level 30 IO's at level 27, start buying sets around level 42." The way I do it is more complex, but I like this stuff, I know the system and I don't mind complex. There are at least four "standard" ways that different people recommend, and even the worst of them (in my opinion) works just fine. Least to most complex:

1. Slot generic IO's from level 30 on, and at level 50 "start playing with sets" and go straight to the zillion-inf build.
2. Slot generics until sometime in the late 30's or 40's, then start building with sets.
3. [I do this] At level 22, slot cheap set "pairs" (like two Acc/Dam from otherwise throwaway sets in the same power). Level 32, start slotting lots of different sets in each power. This is called "Frankenslotting" because you're building something out of leftovers. Sometime in the 40's when you're rich and bored, start slotting fancy sets.
4. Plan ahead, get some money, put bids in early. Slot "throwaway" sets at level 12, 17, 22, and then start slotting nice stuff as early as 32. This is for people who really love building IO's...

My guide (in sig) covers some of this. It was written when the IO system was new, and so it isn't necessarily right about everything. It was just early.

Level 33's are mostly popular because level 30 is the cap for one of the PVP zones (Siren's Call.) And, having paid people to produce a few dozen level 33 IO's, level 50s (or max level for the set) are both more valuable and move faster.

To the OP: If you choose to frankenslot, as per Miraj's advice, here's something from my guide that turned out to be worth keeping. (The guide is old, and nobody really knew what they were doing yet. Not everything in there really works.)
[ QUOTE ]

Acc/dam/Rech (Thunderstrike)
Acc/Dam/Rech(Ruin)
Dam/Rech/End (Thunderstrike)
Dam/Rec/End (Maelstrom's Fury)
Damage (generic)

[/ QUOTE ]

You can slot this from about level 32 on, picking level [say] 34-37 IOs by cost and availability, and get "one acc, three dam, two recharge reduction, one end reduction" worth of bonus. Last time I priced it out it was about a million and a half for all five IO's.

If you want to "start cheap" you can do that. I recommend, even on a cheap build, about 15% Acc bonus (so, for instance, two sets of four or more Thunderstrikes) and an anti-knockback IO in something like Hover or Combat Jumping. The anti-knockback IO (for Defense, the set name is Karma) will cost in the "Five to thirty million inf" range- haven't bought one lately- and the rest of the build will be about the same.

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showf...3#Post13569780

Not that anyone's going to see it, or be convinced of anything they don't already believe.

Any obvious factual errors, or embarassing editing faux pas.. faux... fauxes pas?

We on the market forums used to have a spreadsheet for that, but it doesn't work anymore, because we don't know the weighting.

I'm a big fan of random rolls, because in 10 rolls you will "usually" get something as valuable as a LoTG, plus a lot of other stuff (mostly crap). Nobody knows if that's true anymore since they put in the weighted rolls, but if you do roll- the 35-39 band is considered to be the most financially prudent.

Random roll, as they say, is random- I've seen 3 rolls of which one was a "big 3" item, I've seen 16 rolls where nothing was worth more than 10 million.

From my [very old] guide:
[ QUOTE ]

You can add the same "little bonus" up to five times. No more than five, even if they're from different sets. 3% Resistance and 3.11% Resistance are different little bonuses!


[/ QUOTE ]

My monitor is not 1600x1200.I actually just checked in desktop/Properties/settings and 1280x1024 is as good as it gets.

I dunno what's up with that.

This was going to be a guide on "making your first 20 million on the market, just so you're comfortable and not stressed" but... there are plenty of those guides already.

And while there are also some guides on "shopping without losing your shirt", it looked like there was a lot more room for this guide.

There's a lot of fear, uncertainty and doubt associated with the market in a lot of people's minds. Some of this is justified: there's a lot of stress in the market, a lot of pitfalls, a lot of mistakes that can cost you your whole bankroll, and a perception that ebil marketers, such as myself, are lurking and trying to get your money.

Actually, most of us are trying to get the money of billionaire farmers, but that's not the point here.

The point here is that there are about six simple things you can do to prevent yourself from getting wiped out by market mistakes, or the Ebil That Men Do.

ZERO: Leave a bid up for a while. My current sig is "If you didn't leave a bid up for 24 hours, you didn't really try to buy something." It's true. If you do nothing else, do this. Salvage, especially, goes through price spikes where something that normally costs 5-10,000 inf costs 100,000 or a million. Usually these price spikes last about ten minutes- I remember buying a piece of salvage for 50K and by the time I'd crafted my IO and come back, it was selling for 5,000 again. People put stuff up for sale all the time, and a lot of people put stuff up for 1 inf. I divide it into roughly four time periods:
A) The time it takes to put down bids on every other thing you're trying to buy for the recipe. So, like, 30 seconds. Yes, sometimes the spike will end that fast.
B) Overnight. Maybe if you play for a couple hours, you can bid when you start playing and check when you finish, but a full day is better. A lot of people dump their stuff at the end of the night, a lot buy stuff when they first log on, and you'd like to hit all the time zones. If you leave a bid for 24 hours, it doesn't matter WHEN someone decides to build 40 generic IOs and kills the supply. It doesn't matter WHEN someone comes in from the shadow shard and dumps everything for 1 inf. Someone's going to dump stuff at some point and your bid waits around so you don't have to.
C) Over a weekend. There's a lot of activity on the weekend, especially Friday night and Sunday night. People who only get to play on weekends produce MASSIVE demands, and MASSIVE supplies, and you get shortages and overstocks and prices slosh all over the place. The important thing is, again, your bid sits around watching so you don't have to.
D) Till monkeys type Shakespeare. If your bid didn't fill over a weekend, you're probably not going to get it at that price.

ONE: You can both sell stuff and buy it at Wentworth's. If you have a recipe that's "not worth anything" check the prices for the crafted IO, before you vendor it or throw it out. Also, check the amount of time it takes to sell the crafted IO- if only five sold in the last three months, you will be level 50 before it sells. I actually set prices about 20% below "normal" for the last 5 sales, so my stuff sells quicker.

TWO: Do not buy crafted Set IO's. Most of the time crafted Set IO's sell for about twice the price of the ingredients. Or half a million more, whichever is higher. This is even true if the recipe has dozens in stock, and all the ingredients are common and cheap. If you are a little dubious about crafting your own inventions, go through the tutorial in Steel Canyon/Cap Au Diable (on a new character if needed.) The crafted IO's tend to be available whenever you want them, RIGHT NOW, but you pay dearly for that convenience. If you want something weird like a level 28 Slow/Range, you could check ... there might be someone who had crafter's regret... but generally, if you look at the prices of the recipes (plus salvage, plus crafting costs) the crafted is around twice that much. Go check level 50 Crushing Impacts (don't forget to count the crafting cost!) To save a million inf, I'm gonna build it myself, thank you.

THREE: Check ALL the costs before you buy a recipe. That is the cost of the recipe itself, the cost of the salvage, and the crafting cost. Nothing like picking up a 25K yellow recipe (Air Burst: Dam/Rech comes to mind) and finding out it requires ONE MILLION INF of impervium to make it.

FOUR: You don't have to pay the flipper's sell price. You just have to pay 1 more than the flipper's buy price. Lemme find an actual example. As I write this, the price for blueside level 50 Doctored Wounds looks like this:

2,500,000
1,011,125
1,011,125
1,200,000
1,011,123

... someone has a big stack of bids sitting at 1,011,125 (or 123) and is probably reselling them at something just over 2 million.

... I just bought one for 2,100,000. 1,900,000 didn't get me the shiny.

If you want it now, you pay the 2.1 million. If you don't mind waiting, you can buy it for THEIR price. Plus one inf. So is the "price" 1,011,126 or 2,100,000? Your choice.

FIVE: Plan a couple levels ahead. If you can level, put your slots in, and you already have two IO's in your tray ready to put in those slots... it's easy and no-stress. You can do your shopping when you log on or off and you get a free Wentporter out of it.

[ QUOTE ]
You have to casually PvP and defeat an already casually purpled warshade and win. Casually of course.


[/ QUOTE ]
In order to BE the squid, you have to BEAT the squid.

I'm swinging back to optimism. Or possibly boredom. Midrange build idea, anyway.

Anything there look juicy?

I thought I disabled the Google Thingy on startup, but maybe it's enabled itself.

And HijackThis:

Logfile of Trend Micro HijackThis v2.0.2
Scan saved at 2:20:00 PM, on 6/1/2009
Platform: Windows XP SP3 (WinNT 5.01.2600)
MSIE: Internet Explorer v6.00 SP3 (6.00.2900.5512)
Boot mode: Normal

Running processes:
C:\WINDOWS\System32\smss.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\winlogon.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\services.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\lsass.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe
C:\WINDOWS\System32\svchost.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\spoolsv.exe
C:\Program Files\AVG\AVG8\avgrsx.exe
C:\WINDOWS\Explorer.EXE
C:\Program Files\VIA\VIAudioi\HDADeck\HDeck.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\RUNDLL32.EXE
C:\Program Files\Creative\Sound Blaster X-Fi\Console Launcher\CTAPR2.exe
C:\Program Files\Creative\Sound Blaster X-Fi\Volume Panel\VolPanlu.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\Rundll32.exe
C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\bin\jusched.exe
C:\PROGRA~1\AVG\AVG8\avgtray.exe
C:\Program Files\Creative\Shared Files\CTSched.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\CTsvcCDA.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\nvsvc32.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\wscntfy.exe
C:\WINDOWS\System32\svchost.exe
C:\sb downloads\CohHelper.exe
C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe
C:\Program Files\Trend Micro\HijackThis\HijackThis.exe

R0 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Start Page = http://www.yahoo.com/
O2 - BHO: AcroIEHelperStub - {18DF081C-E8AD-4283-A596-FA578C2EBDC3} - C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Acrobat\ActiveX\AcroIEHelperShim.dll
O2 - BHO: WormRadar.com IESiteBlocker.NavFilter - {3CA2F312-6F6E-4B53-A66E-4E65E497C8C0} - C:\Program Files\AVG\AVG8\avgssie.dll
O2 - BHO: Google Toolbar Helper - {AA58ED58-01DD-4d91-8333-CF10577473F7} - C:\Program Files\Google\Google Toolbar\GoogleToolbar.dll
O2 - BHO: Google Toolbar Notifier BHO - {AF69DE43-7D58-4638-B6FA-CE66B5AD205D} - C:\Program Files\Google\GoogleToolbarNotifier\5.1.1309.3572\s wg.dll
O2 - BHO: Google Dictionary Compression sdch - {C84D72FE-E17D-4195-BB24-76C02E2E7C4E} - C:\Program Files\Google\Google Toolbar\Component\fastsearch_A8904FB862BD9564.dll
O2 - BHO: Java(tm) Plug-In 2 SSV Helper - {DBC80044-A445-435b-BC74-9C25C1C588A9} - C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\bin\jp2ssv.dll
O2 - BHO: JQSIEStartDetectorImpl - {E7E6F031-17CE-4C07-BC86-EABFE594F69C} - C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\lib\deploy\jqs\ie\jqs_plugin.dll
O3 - Toolbar: Google Toolbar - {2318C2B1-4965-11d4-9B18-009027A5CD4F} - C:\Program Files\Google\Google Toolbar\GoogleToolbar.dll
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [HDAudDeck] C:\Program Files\VIA\VIAudioi\HDADeck\HDeck.exe 1
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [NvCplDaemon] RUNDLL32.EXE C:\WINDOWS\system32\NvCpl.dll,NvStartup
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [nwiz] nwiz.exe /install
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [NvMediaCenter] RUNDLL32.EXE C:\WINDOWS\system32\NvMcTray.dll,NvTaskbarInit
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [CTAPR2] "C:\Program Files\Creative\Sound Blaster X-Fi\Console Launcher\CTAPR2.exe" /r
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [VolPanel] "C:\Program Files\Creative\Sound Blaster X-Fi\Volume Panel\VolPanlu.exe" /r
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [SPIRun] Rundll32 SPIRun.dll,RunDLLEntry
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [SunJavaUpdateSched] "C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\bin\jusched.exe"
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [AVG8_TRAY] C:\PROGRA~1\AVG\AVG8\avgtray.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [Adobe Reader Speed Launcher] "C:\Program Files\Adobe\Reader 9.0\Reader\Reader_sl.exe"
O4 - HKCU\..\Run: [CreativeTaskScheduler] "C:\Program Files\Creative\Shared Files\CTSched.exe" /logon
O8 - Extra context menu item: E&xport to Microsoft Excel - res://C:\PROGRA~1\MICROS~2\Office12\EXCEL.EXE/3000
O9 - Extra button: Research - {92780B25-18CC-41C8-B9BE-3C9C571A8263} - C:\PROGRA~1\MICROS~2\Office12\REFIEBAR.DLL
O9 - Extra button: (no name) - {e2e2dd38-d088-4134-82b7-f2ba38496583} - C:\WINDOWS\Network Diagnostic\xpnetdiag.exe
O9 - Extra 'Tools' menuitem: @xpsp3res.dll,-20001 - {e2e2dd38-d088-4134-82b7-f2ba38496583} - C:\WINDOWS\Network Diagnostic\xpnetdiag.exe
O9 - Extra button: Messenger - {FB5F1910-F110-11d2-BB9E-00C04F795683} - C:\Program Files\Messenger\msmsgs.exe
O9 - Extra 'Tools' menuitem: Windows Messenger - {FB5F1910-F110-11d2-BB9E-00C04F795683} - C:\Program Files\Messenger\msmsgs.exe
O16 - DPF: {F6ACF75C-C32C-447B-9BEF-46B766368D29} (Creative Software AutoUpdate Support Package) - http://ccfiles.creative.com/Web/soft...5108/CTPID.cab
O18 - Protocol: linkscanner - {F274614C-63F8-47D5-A4D1-FBDDE494F8D1} - C:\Program Files\AVG\AVG8\avgpp.dll
O18 - Filter: x-sdch - {B1759355-3EEC-4C1E-B0F1-B719FE26E377} - C:\Program Files\Google\Google Toolbar\Component\fastsearch_A8904FB862BD9564.dll
O20 - Winlogon Notify: avgrsstarter - C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\avgrsstx.dll
O23 - Service: Creative Service for CDROM Access - Creative Technology Ltd - C:\WINDOWS\system32\CTsvcCDA.exe
O23 - Service: Google Software Updater (gusvc) - Google - C:\Program Files\Google\Common\Google Updater\GoogleUpdaterService.exe
O23 - Service: NVIDIA Display Driver Service (NVSvc) - NVIDIA Corporation - C:\WINDOWS\system32\nvsvc32.exe

--
End of file - 4946 bytes

Ah. useful stuff time.

---System information gathered by CoH Helper version 0.1.1.7---

DxDiag gathered at June 1, 2009 14:17 (-04:00)
Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 3 (2600.xpsp_sp3_gdr.090206-1234)
System Manufacturer: System manufacturer
System Model: System Product Name
BIOS: BIOS Date: 07/15/08 16:43:11 Ver: 04.05
Central Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 7750 Dual-Core Processor, MMX, 3DNow (2 CPUs), ~2.7GHz
Memory: 3328MB
.Net Memory Report: 2761MB out of 3327MB available
Page File: 4813MB (398MB currently in use)
C Drive: (Hitachi HDP725032GLA360) 283744MB out of 305234MB (92%) free
D Drive: (HL-DT-ST DVD-RAM GH22NP20) zero-size drive
Windows directory location: C:\WINDOWS
DirectX: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
DirectX Diag version: 5.03.2600.5512 (32-bit version)

Display Notes: No problems found.
Sound Notes: No problems found.

No problems found.
Input Notes: No problems found.

Monitor: Plug and Play Monitor
Monitor's Max Resolution: 1600,1200
Video Device Name: NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX+
Manufacturer / Chip: NVIDIA / GeForce 9800 GTX+
Video Memory: 1024.0 MB
Driver Version: 6.14.0011.8208
Driver Date: 2/18/2009 5:44:00 PM
Driver Language: English

Sound Device Description: Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio
Driver File: t3.sys
Driver Version: 5.10.0000.0203
Driver Date: 10/17/2008 9:41:26 AM

Sound Device Description: HD Audio rear output
Driver File: viahduaa.sys
Driver Version: 6.00.0001.1430
Driver Date: 2/13/2008 11:36:34 PM


WMI Information
Motherboard Manufacturer: ASUSTeK Computer INC.
Motherboard Model: (empty)
Motherboard Product: M3A78-CM
Motherboard Version: Rev X.0x
BIOS Manufacturer: American Megatrends Inc.
BIOS Name: BIOS Date: 07/15/08 16:43:11 Ver: 04.05
BIOS Version: 071508 - 20080715
BIOS Release: 20080715000000.000000+000

Registry Information for Current User
Resolution: 1280x1024
3D Resolution: 1280x1024 (Not using renderscale)
Full Screen: Yes
Maximized: No
Screen Position: 0, 0
Refresh Rate: 60Hz
Vertical Sync Enabled: Yes

Physics Quality: Medium
Maximum Particles: 34332
Max Particle Fill? 10.000
Physics Card Enabled: No

Anti-aliasing: 4x
Anisotropic Filtering: 16x
Texture LOD Bias: Smooth
Water Effects: Low Quality
Bloom: 1.000 (turned off)
Depth of Field Enabled: No
Desaturation Effects (Sepia) Enabled: Yes
Shader Detail: High

World Texture Level: Very High
Character Texture Level: Very High
World Detail Level (Vis_Scale): 1.448
Entity Detail Level: 2.000
Shadows Enabled: Yes
Gamma Correction: 1.000
Geometry Buffers (VBOs) Enabled: Yes
Suppression of Extra Player FX Enabled: No
Suppression of FX When Camera Close Enabled: No
Close Suppression Range: 3.000
Show Advertisements: Yes

Audio Mode: Performance
3D Audio: No
FX Sound Volume: 0.144
Music Sound Volume: 0.138

Show Advanced Graphics Options: Yes
Overall Graphics Quality: 0.600
Reverse Mouse Buttons: No
Save Login Username: Yes
Transfer Rate: 599840 bytes/second
Current Game Version: 18.20090422.5T
Installation Directory: C:\Program Files\City of Heroes

Mod files in the Data directory
No modifications found

Now that you know what it _is_ you probably still don't know why people are talking about it.

One of the things about the Invention System is that if you warp your build, and spend a godzillion inf, you can get some impressive things. One of those impressive things is "Very, very high global recharge"- the equivalent of two, or three, or five Recharge Reduction SO's in every power before you slot any recharge.

The Luck of the Gambler +Recharge Global IO is a crucial part of this strategy. As a result it is very, very expensive. If you get one through play, you can buy a swimming pool and fill it with inf and swim around like Scrooge McDuck.

If you want one, you have to first acquire a swimming pool full of inf. If you want five? Five swimming pools.

Read my sig.

I think "to see what would happen." We had this bizarre complex plan to swamp the market, and chuque came along and stole our thunder, so we panicked and dumped all OUR Luck Charms, and there was chaos in the market. For about a week.

We didn't actually manage to get "0 bids" but by the end we were selling 'em for like 7K.

Something that hadn't sold for less than 35,000 inf in six months and there were over a thousand bids at 7K or less. You gotta call that faith.

Dictator_MM: Why can't you put a bid at 5002 (or be conservative and put it at 6002) and wait 30 minutes? After all, a lot were available to buy at 5001 in the LAST 30 minutes, chances are there'll be a lot available to buy at 5002 in the NEXT 30 minutes*.

* unless of course the servers went down for maint and stayed down for 2 hours.

"Patient bidding" in this game is often a matter of minutes. I had something where I wanted three of something, but I wanted one RIGHT NOW. I don't know, probably Masterwork Weapons or something. I put up a bid for 5908 for two of them, kept bidding until I paid 40K or something for the third. By the time I got back from the SG base with my freshly crafted item... the 5908's had filled.

Still a problem. I managed to get it to happen with netgraph running and it goes "nice little lawn BIG GIANT GREEN BLOCK nice little lawn". It looks like the "you have just opened the market" or "you just zoned" green block, but much much longer in duration. Like 45 seconds to a minute.

My wife shares the connection and she doesn't have these problems.

Will post my CoH Helper and HijackThis logs later.

"Highest DPS for a character who can survive incoming fire" is an entirely different number. Also, "highest DPS for a character who can slot purples" is a different number from "highest DPS in the 1-49 game". A much higher one.

PunkRolex: What next, complaining about the Spanish Civil War? It's OVER and we have, actually, a much better game. Nobody needed your Defenders in issue 4. The tanks were busy piling up 400 badguys, unboosted and unaided, and Foot Stomping them to death in a dumpster while the player went to change a load of laundry.

Fire/Elec Blasters probably have considerably higher max DPS; the Blaster boards don't generally build for max DPS because the interesting question for them is "How can I survive the incoming damage?"

Scrapper builds tend to revolve around taking the absolute best attacks and building very short chains.

Given that Blaze is 200 DPS with no buffs or enhancements, Charged Brawl is 131 DPS with no buffs or enhancements, Havoc Punch is 100 DPS with no b or e, and Golden Dragonfly is 89 DPS with no b or e... it's going to be AWFULLY hard for Blasters to lose to Scrappers on sheer damage output.

Then again, I've seen some very impressive multipliers in Scrapper high-DPS builds.

Edit: I was writing while StrykerX was posting.